


a picture speaks a thousand words

by crownuponherhead



Series: twelve days of jonsa [3]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Minor Robb Stark/Margaery Tyrell, Past Abuse, lyanna isn't a stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 11:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13212765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownuponherhead/pseuds/crownuponherhead
Summary: A picture you and your soulmate are in will be sent to you on your nineteenth birthday, which can be tricky if it was, for example, a class photo or a newspaper picture of a crowd. Your soulmate either receives the same picture or one of the event in said picture from a different view.Jon Snow receives his picture and decides he has the worst luck in the world.Day 4 of 12 Days of Jonsa





	a picture speaks a thousand words

**Author's Note:**

> again this one is also late because i was in disney world but also because i really wanted to make it good??? i hope it makes sense i wanted to do something unique for soulmates.

 

On his nineteenth birthday Jon woke up to his mother waving around the white envelope in his face. She was excited he couldn’t blame her, but it was something he was dreading. He didn’t understand how you could know someone so well you had a picture with them and they end up being your soulmate. It was all twisted and fucked up. However he does take the envelope and give his mom an excited smile as she sits on the bed across from him just to appease her.  

His photo is shit. Then again what was he expecting. It’s a picture in the middle of a fucking crowd. He knew the picture; it was only from two months ago when Robb turned nineteen when they all went to Disney World HighGarden. Of course, Robb already had his soulmate, the photo that arrived was the same one of him and Margaery from their middle school dance. They all laughed at it and spent the day celebrating. Margaery being who she is demanded they all take a picture in front of the castle with hundreds of women in the background. In the picture, he’s got Arya on his back, Theon is to his side, Next is Robb and Margaery holding onto each other and Sansa sits on the side laughing at something he remembers hearing Theon say.

When he shows the picture to his mom, she gives him that sad smile. Anyone can see the disappointment of having a crowd picture, you never know.

“Maybe it’ll all work out, sweetie.” Is all his Mom says before kissing his head and heading downstairs to make his favorite breakfast.

It’s not like he wanted to have a soulmate but he didn’t expect this. Maybe just a picture he could tell easily like Robb got lucky with. He got one of his baby sister’s best friend for a soulmate, one who had always been a flirt with him. His mom and dad weren’t soulmates, just a mess of passion with his dad forgetting to mention he was married and had kids. It took his mom years to find her soulmate, Arthur was great he was happy for his mom but it had kinda screwed him over with being able to push this whole soulmate thing to the side. 

When they all meet up at the pub that night he can practically smell the disappointment when they see the picture. Margaery takes it upon herself to take a picture and highlight every single woman in the photo insisting that it’ll help them in the future. He doesn’t miss the pitying look he gets from Sansa, the jokes about him getting to go through women from Theon like a hum in the back of his head, Robb nods at him but he can tell his best friend is hiding the pity that equals his sister’s expression.

It’s not that he doesn’t try he does, at one point he thinks he meets her. Her name is Ygritte, they both work at the same bar, The Wall, downtown in their little college town. She’s got a picture in the same spot as his soulmate picture was taken. When he asks her about it one afternoon, she shows him another picture. He can barely tell that the picture is in the same location but he knows what it means when it’s ripped and burnt around all the edges, he’d never met someone before but one of his Mom’s friends were like that. When he’d asked as a little boy he can remember his Mom pulling him aside for the conversation.

“When a picture is ruined like that it means their soulmate is soulmates with someone else or they never get to meet their soulmate. It really depends. It’s one of those everything happens for a reason, like your father and I.”

Ygritte sees his picture not too long after that, it sits on the desk in his apartment and she starts screaming at him. She can see herself in the back. Jon ends up sitting staring at the picture as she ends the relationship storming out of the place he shares with Sam.

* * *

 

On Sansa’s nineteenth birthday she’s still in King’s Landing, when the picture comes in she doesn’t get to open it. Her boyfriend takes it away from her saying it doesn’t matter what’s in there because she’s dating him. Joffrey knows she isn’t his soulmate but she looks good on his arm, in reality his picture is ruined and burnt all around and it’s a picture of him as a little boy that as soon as he opened his mother burnt in the fire. Sansa feels defeated as she watches the envelope walk out with him. She won’t admit it to anyone but she’s miserable down south, somethings she never expected. Sansa responds to the texts asking about it curiously that she decided she didn’t want to open it and ruin her relationship.

Sansa knows there’s no saving a relationship that had always been dead.

She leaves in the middle of her last semester after a fight that landed her a stint in the hospital. All her things from her in and Joffrey’s shared apartment are haphazardly boxed and arrive at her parents house before she even does with a letter of eviction notice signed by his mother with a warning that she shouldn’t talk, she supposes that’s the flaw of it being a Lannister building.

Her parents unpack for her, it’s kinda hard for her to when she’s nursing a concussion with a broken arm. They mistake the manila envelope for something for school and throw it in the box they have filled with her binders. She’s only six credits away from her teaching degree, she’d even already done her student teaching in Kings Landing. Once she’s better she doesn’t want to go back.  Instead she starts to nanny slowly, mostly for women struggling in the north none of the higher class people. She wants to help, she can live comfortably at home for now, until she needs to move on she wants to help.

* * *

 

The last place he expected to see Sansa Stark was at Gilly’s little apartment playing with little Sam on the ground. He hadn’t seen her since her move to Kings Landing four years ago. He’d missed her every time he’d been over at the Starks since then. Seeing her here was what shocked him the most. He’d been out with Gilly and Sam all day as they looked at flat’s in downtown Wintertown where Sam had just taken a job in the IT department of the Wintertown Police Department. Personally, Jon was ecstatic to have his friend working so close, by close he meant down the hall, he called it a personal win for him. It also helped that Gilly, Sam’s soulmate he’d met in college by what could only be described as fate for them both. He’d met her on a walk through campus, a pregnant homeless girl who looked exactly like the girl in the photo he’d been sent a year prior.

At the sound of the door opening though, little Sam had bounded from Sansa and to his parents, like Sam had been anything less of a father to little Sam from the moment he was born. Jon watched as Sansa moved around the room cleaning up the toys that Sam had dragged out in the duration of the day. He gave the toddler a hug hello when the little one came running up to him in his greetings more distracted by what was in front of him.

“Thank you again, Sansa for watching him last minute. It’s all so sudden.” Gilly had moved to help her clean up.

“It’s no issue, I enjoyed getting our day. Sam, did you-“ Sansa paused her eyes meeting Jon who held little Sam in his arms.

“Sans,” He’s setting little Sam down in a minute, who is curiously asking why Uncle Jon knows Miss Sansa.

“I didn’t realize Sam’s cool Uncle Jon was you. “ Is all she let’s out, she’s too tired of emotional reunions.

“The one and only.” He can see the changes in her, there scar under her eye from where Joffrey’s family ring cut through her skin, the way her eyes don’t light up as much anymore. “I came by as soon as I could, your parents said you didn’t want visitors until you were better.” He see’s her nod but knew she was done with thinking about. “They said you’d started nannying for a bunch of young mom’s in town and helping Margaery with the wedding. I just didn't think it'd be Gilly."

"Well I didn't exactly think you were Uncle Jon." She teased a bit and he saw the smile on her lips. 

"Do you wanna get dinner, Sans?" At her nodd, Sansa goes to get her stuff as he says by the Sam and Gilly with promises of an update. Sansa bends down to let little Sam know she'll come play with him again soon and let's Gilly know to just call her when she needs her. 

* * *

 

The next six months Sansa can feel herself getting closer to Jon, he's her go to person to talk to. They go out on the weekends, get food together, spend time at the local pub. She's brought him food during his long shifts. There's barely been weeks they've been apart in the time they were there.  As they sit in her room now hiding out from the chaos of the wedding preparations going on downstairs they're splitting a bottle of champagne she snuck from the kitchen. They're sprawled out on her bed  but her head is on his lap and he leans against the wall.

"You know I've never even gone through any of my things my parents put away." She's been home for 10 months, sometimes she thinks about going back to school to finish those two classes but she gets scared every time.

"Why haven't you?" His hand moves to mess with her hair and she sighs happily. 

"I don't know, I just haven't ever felt the need to or the itch." Sansa admits looking at the boxes of things they left for her to organize. She feels his hands pause at that.

"Do you want to?"

"Will you help me?" 

"Yes." He answers right away, she assumes it's because he can tell how timid she is in just one breath. 

They start with her books, they're just random one's she'd picked up in Kings Landing, some are the classic romantic novels she loved to read and others are kids books she'd picked up for her future classroom. She mentions a bit sadly about giving some to little Sam and he wants to help give her the push to go back but he knows it's not her place and that he shouldn't. They organize her notebooks keeping them in a box just in case, it's her hope. It's when they get to the bottom of the box that she freezes. At twenty three years old Sansa had given up on ever knowing who her soulmate was. Here in front of her though is her photo still in the envelope. 

"Is that-" "Yes, I thought Joffrey destroyed it."

Her hands are shaking as she picks up the envelope. He places his hand on her back comforting. It's nerve wracking for him too, he isn't sure what this is but the past few months have been the best of his life, he wants nothing more than to continue it for the best. When she pulls out the picture they both gasp, staring back at them both is the same picture that's in his desk drawer at home and he has a very strong feeling that there's no mistake: Sansa Stark is his soulmate. She's frozen on his lap but her grip on him has tightened. 

"Sansa, can I kiss you?" 

"Gods, I thought you'd never ask." He kisses her again and again that night. Throughout the wedding weekend he kisses her a few times in secret too. They don't want to overshadow the wedding, so they keep it to themselves. However as soon as Robb and Margaery are back from the honeymoon and over for dinner, Sansa proudly presents her soulmate picture and gives Jon a kiss to the cheek. Margaery can't believe she couldn't have figured out that it was Sansa the whole time instead of random women.

 

 


End file.
